Posted
by
timothyon Wednesday March 24, 2004 @09:14AM
from the golden-goose-time dept.

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported by CNN.com, the European Union has hit Microsoft with a record US$613 million fine after a five-year investigation, finding the company guilty of abusing the 'near-monopoly' of the Windows operating system. Microsoft has been given 90 days to make a European version of Windows available without a media player and 120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market to allow 'full interoperability' with desktops running Windows. Microsoft plans to appeal the decision." Other readers point to coverage at
the BBC, ZDNet, Reuters (here carried by Yahoo!), and abc.au.net.

Media player being bundled costs the consumer money even if they don't want it. It also allows Microsoft to further leverage its market position once WMP is ubiqitous!As for the 'orders' on API documentation? Woohoo.

Microsoft is the perfect example of how capitalism needs a tight rein for it to work to the benefit of people, not big corporations!

Because the fine is not the punishment. That's just the wrist-slap, although admittedly it's a harder one than normal. Because of the high value the press are focusing on this, but it's not the real action.

No, the meat of this decision is the forcing of the unbundling and the opening up of specifications. That's the punishment, not the cash.

I'd say that the fine is definitely intended to get media attention, though the EU can surely put the cash to good use. As you say, the real punishment is forcing the unbundling and opening up the specs.

Perhaps more to the point, there is the unstated (by CNN, at least) threat of further action and/or fines if the deadlines are not met. Well, that's how I interpret "they've been given 90 days to comply", anyway... Now that the punishment has been handed out, it will be a lot easier to increase the fine f

Think of the $614mil as a mosquito bite. Get enough of em together, and eventually, you're scratching like crazy to deal with the itchiness of the bites. And there's always a chance that one of those bites will cause malaria or West Nile (equivilent to the market freak-out that subsequent fines could cause).

The purpose isn't to destroy companies. Destroying a company like Microsoft would hurt customers even more than monopolistic practices. That would be diametrically opposed to the intended effect of the ruling.

Also, $613 million is a serious figure. Nick Leeson broke the Barings Bank in the '90s on of just over twice that amount. Enron (partly) collapsed over a $563 million deficit. Remember, it's not like those $50 billion are in a big jar that everybody can take some of when they feel like it. Divisions are accountable, managers are accountable, books have to be kept. Combined with the other rulings, this should be understood as a severe penalty for Microsoft Europe.

Microsoft has a cash pile of more than $50bn, so even a fine on this scale - a record for the EU in an antitrust case - is unlikely to hurt it commercially.

I think people saying that this amount of money is nothing to microsoft are being a bit naive. Just because MS can afford it doesn't mean that they don't appreciate the fact that this is still a hell of a lot of money. The last thing MS wants is a precedent that whenever they get caught for breaking a rule the local government is entitled to take $500 million off of them.

More on the point of what you said, the fine will tell investors that fining the company is possible -- even likely -- and has relatively harsh consequences upon equity. Hence, in the right circumstances, a fine as small as US$10 million could crash Microsoft's stock 5%... erasing billions in stock value.

Not that I care about the economy-destroying stock speculators, mind you.

Microsoft claims that it should not be fined at all because it did not know its behaviour would breach EU law.

Right. Of course they didn't know. They just set up shop in a different country and assumed that US law would prevail. What's wrong with that ? (Hint: lots!)

Another quote:

"In the EU's judgment, Microsoft must refrain from using any commercial, technological or contractual terms that would have the effect of "rendering the unbundled version of Windows less attractive or performing. In particular, it must not give PC manufacturers a discount conditional on their buying Windows together with the Windows Media player."

Well, no wonder they're going to appeal, that removes 90% of their business practice!

Let's hope that the APIs that are published reveal as much embarrassing nerdy amateurism in MS as the release of undocumented APIs in previous versions of Windows. Who can forget the function names BEAR35, BUNNY73, PIGLET12 and the classic PRESTOCHANGOSELECTOR?

Does anyone else consider it a bit weird that they're using Windows Media Player as bait ? That's a division where there's at least some competition from Quicktime and Realplayer. The browser war was a far more dirty one IMO, and microsoft is STILL making it practically impossible for competitors to integrate their browser properly over IE.

And what about the java fuckups ? The Samba debacle ? The OEM backmailing ?

well, think about it. why not WMP? is there any technology out there growing faster than digital media right now?

The RIAA and their counterparts can sue whoever they like to protect cds as a viable distribution method (this is what they really want to do, regardless of what anyone says), but digital content is here right now and it isn't going away. I think everyone knows this.

The EU is picking this particular "feature" of Windows to blast MS on simply because of its relevance to future markets. And besides . . . why do you think MS bitched so much about having to take it off? If it was an innocent thing, they wouldn't have built it into the OS as a component (they did do that, yes? I know for sure IE is) AND they would have just taken it off when asked to do so.

If releasing the full Windows APIs is part of the deal, it should be possible to provide a Mozilla based DLL to replace the IE one. Ditto Opera and others. If enough functionality is released to allow WindowsUpdate to work, any browser war will be formally over.

Actually the predominant complaint in Europe has been that the EU only has teeth for EU companies whilst overseas companies (big US ones with big legal budgets in particular) get away with things that EU companies don't.

Allthougth it is the biggest fine imposed by the EU, it is only 8% of thier EU sales, other companies have been hit harder in real terms for monopolistic practices.

The fine means nothing really, it is the other conditions which hurt, but the US courts have on numerous occassions ruled against MS monopolistic practices. Had they achieved thier stated aim there would have been no case.

in a front-page article a couple days ago that it has not yet been decided whether the remedy will be put on hold during the appeal and MS has to lose the appeal for the remedy to go into effect, or whether the remedy goes into effect now and MS has to win the appeal for the remedy to be redacted.

They said a judge had a forthcoming ruling on that issue. It seems quite possible to me the ruling would go in favor of the government, since it is quite clear that a remedy that begins in five years would be as good as no remedy at all-- it is quite easy to look at how quickly the tech market moves and how quickly MS has been able to take over previous previous tech markets once they start putting the veritcal-monopoly moves on, and argue that if the remedy waits for the end of the appeals process, it will be too late to do anything to help the competitors the remedy is meant to address.

An appeal doesn't mean you walk scot-free during the process. If I'm found guilty of murdering 50 people, I can appeal but I'm not going to be set free to walk the streets just because I appealed the verdict. The only way I can be set free is if the appellate court agrees to suspend the sentence and it's unlikely to do so in this case. So Microsoft will either comply pending an appeal or have their EU assets seized landing a few of their EU execs behind bars in the process

Sadly the appeals and whinging are likely to drag on for many years.Hopefully the EU will be able to make the ruling stick in the end. The fine may not be all that much to MS, but being forced to unbundle Media Player, etc could have quite an effect on their future strategies.

Aren't the time lines for these things rediculous? From the time an investigation starts, trail is held, conviction is appealed and re-tried, it takes about a decade to exact "justice" on an international corporation.

In the meantime, the victims such as smaller competing firms and consumers have long since picked up the pieces and moved on. The companies at the amepx of it all aren't even relevant anylonger (Netscape?).

Until the law can put some spring in their step, a $600 Million fine 10 years after putting awa your competition is paultry.

$613 million? Oooh, not. That's pocket change to Microsoft, who has a war chest of billions of dollars -- but of course this won't stop it from passing the cost along to its customers, and blaming the EU for increasing the price of Microsoft products.

In the end, this court decision isn't going to amount to anything. Competition has already been hurt. Customers aren't going to want to pay the same price for a version of Windows without WiMP. Competitors won't be given access to Microsoft's API's; MS will appeal and drag this out for a very long time. And in the end it will ignore the court orders, just like it did in the US, knowing that its punishment will be yet another lengthy court process which it can drag out and then ignore again, all the while telling its customers that government is trying to raise prices and stifle innovation. Maybe it'll even try to settle by again offering to install Microsoft software in schools for free (until the license has to be renewed in a few years, that is).

$613 million? Oooh, not. That's pocket change to Microsoft, who has a war chest of billions of dollars -- but of course this won't stop it from passing the cost along to its customers, and blaming the EU for increasing the price of Microsoft products.

You sure don't understand basic economics. The vendor will charge whatever the market is willing to pay, no matter how much it cost to make the product.

That's why about 90% of the Windows- and Office-prices is pure profit while they are losing money on XBox, WinCE and many other things.

If anything, the punishments will lower prices for Europeans because of increased competition. Just look at Thailand where Microsoft dropped their Win+Office prices from 600$ to 37$: http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32110.html [linuxinsider.com]

Always remember: Only the loyal customers get ripped off. Those who for example run their servers on Unix get huge discounts (like Munich)

This sounds like the most important part to me. What does this mean? The CNN article is incredibly vague. Is MS allowed to place restrictions on the licensing of this "program code"-- i.e. forcing anyone who looks at code to sign an NDA saying, say, they won't use the information in a GPLed product? What do they define by "in the server market"? Is this just saying MS has to make its WMA code available, or is this Windows in general?

If the latter, that's absolutely fantastic. That means we could start seeing 100% compatible versions of Wine, freed from the difficulty and endless trial=and-error of duplicating an API where so much is undocumented and "bug compatibility" is so crucial.

If the former, that this means MS has to divulge the necessary information for third parties to be fully compatible with WMP serving, that's not quite so interesting.

Incidentally, I want to nominate this as the most bullshit argument MS apologists have ever put forth, ever.

Analysts say by forcing Microsoft to offer a version of Windows XP without Media Player, consumers could pay higher costs.

"If it were to be obliged to offer versions both with and without Media Player, then that would mean we would probably have double the number of consumer PC configuration in our shops. Of course this is product that is built before it is sold," says Brian Gammage from computer consultancy Gartner.

Wow. So Microsoft using Windows revenues to subsidize a hugely complex and unnecessary movie player and set of movie codecs doesn't increase costs to consumers, but Microsoft having to print up two differing sets of cheap cardboard to sell in stores does. Amazing.

No, MS is not required to release any code, just the API, and from the sound of it, they are expected to make it freely available.Here is the EU press release [eu.int], that should be more accurate than that various news agencies make up.

In order to restore the conditions of fair competition, the Commission has imposed the following remedies:
As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products.
To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area(6), Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products.

Sounds like to me that they would have to provide the APIs (not the source!) to the SMB file sharing protocol, and, for instance, allow anyone, including Macs and Linux, to work seamlessly with Active Directory and Exchange. Note: Microsoft will be able to "reasonably charge" for that information. Personally, I think this is a big thing for getting OS X into the Enterprise; I can certainly forsee Apple paying for that access.

You bring up very good points however it does increase overhead and support costs if ever so slightly.

Sure. Except there are two things.

Increased costs don't translate to higher prices. Businesses don't just go "oh gee, our heating bill was $70 higher this month than we were expecting, better raise our prices by 0.03 cents per unit". Businesses sell at the price that will maximize the value of the price per unit times the number of consumers willing to buy at the current price per unit. Cost only comes i

According to an article in a German newspaper [spiegel.de] (sorry, it's in German) the money will go to the EU budget, reducing the money the EU member states would have to contribute by the same amount. For Germany that would mean 100 million Euros less to pay to the EU in that year.

Its an important document and those here interested should read it and post related comments/ suggestions to the email address on that page.

What they are seeking to do is support evaluate both Open Source and Proprietary solutions; whilst doing their utmost to avoid vendor lock-in ; as is the case with Microsoft bundling IE & WMP (etc) with windows.

The document is an Open Draft, that means that right now it is not set in stone, and liable for change. If anyone here reads it and thinks it should be changed in anyway I would advise letting them know.

I RTFA, and I didn't see: what happens if they don't comply, or comply 1/2 and it's found that it doesn't cut it?

And this will be a bigger story if/when the sanctions immediately apply, instead of being enjoined until the end of the appeals process. Could go either way, I guess; but the first wouldn't allow Microsoft to play a waiting game.

Is there any information on how they have to release that code? I recall them being forced to release documentation of APIs in the US for a reasonable license, which they set at around a hundred grand, fifty if you decided to not use it after a look.

Will the EU allow that crap too, or will it realize that Microsoft's largest competitors are likely to be OSS developers and a hundred-grand license would be about the same as not actually releasing it to their competitors?

By allowing Microsoft to charge royalties on implementing interoperability interfaces when they are covered by patents ot other titles, it makes it impossible for a free software project to implement interoperability. The Commission once again shows that it cares only for competition... among multinationals.For the Europeans: this is one more reason to reject software patents. "Encore un effort..."Curiously the French version of the press release says "reasonable and non-discriminatory" while the English only says only "reasonable". I guess that's meant to please the French and Microsoft at the same time:-)

...that in a time when incredible shortcomings of Microsoft's OS are found, some of you actually talk about 'American/European (skewed) relationships' and how 'unfair this is to an American company'.

For once look at the big picture, and forget that Microsoft is an American company, and the EU filed a European verdict: Microsoft is a major global player in an international market ruled mainly by European and American companies together.

In this playing field it is only fair that a referree - no matter if US or EU - rules when a player crosses the legal line.It is to the benefit of both the Europeans as the Americans in the long term, and we will pick the fruits of this decision in time.

...but the only reason this is a "record" fine is because our own government CAVED IN and let them off the hook after a decade-long trial. After spending a *huge* amount of money in court, the US government sternly told MS they had to promise to release a service pack.

If our government had stuck to its guns from the first time of many that MS was taken to court, the tech landscape here would be vastly different, I think. Hey, BeOS might even be alive, and Linux and Macs would CERTAINLY have more momentum than they do!

Even if MS pays this in cash rather than software, it's still pocket change, currently sitting happily in the MS account and earning them interest. So they won't earn as much interest this year. Big deal. This won't change anything. At best it's less money for MS to pay SCO with.

NPR this morning was stating that Microsoft will appeal (Wow that is a suprise). They said that an Appeal could last up to seven years. In that time, longhorn v2 will be out and support for XP will be cut off. This will make the case a moot point. Even if they loose the appeal, Microsoft won't pay.

Swift justice, it seems, works just as fast in Europe as it does here.:-)

So... they fined Microsoft roughly 2% of one year's sales. This "proportionate" and "balanced" ruling was because the "near-monopoly" tried for several years to "shut competitors out of the market". (quotes are from the EU Commission)

This is how losing 2% of my gross income would impact me on a weekly basis.
(myGrossIncome * 0.02) / 52 = myWeeklyImpactIfFined

So what do you casually spend more than 2% of your gross income on? Lunch? State sales (or VAT) tax? Gasoline? Porn?

The fine is neither harsh nor effective. Anyone want to take a guess at how much the competitors have lost every year?

According to NZHerald [nzherald.co.nz] and independent.co.uk, some members of parliament are not happy with the EU's decisions.

"This ruling is yet another example of the EU assaulting a successful American industry and policies that support our economic growth," said US Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Microsoft's home state of Washington. She called on President George Bush to "engage" with Brussels on the case.

...another rexample of EU assaulting another a poor defendless honest american corporation? awww..pfft!. it seems more like an example of how much control MS and any other big corp has over the American government.

How dare the EU declare war on and infringe the human rights of a lovely corporation like MS who just happens to have made [opensecrets.org]
substantial [opensecrets.org]
contributions [opensecrets.org]
to [opensecrets.org]
Ms. Murray's campaign fund.
(~$200000).

I'm hoping somebody can clear this up. Does this mean that Microsoft has to help out projects like Samba so that Linux can communicate with Windows over SMB? Or does it extend all the way to helping Wine run Windows apps on Linux?

Personally, I hope it extends all the way. Imagine the Wine team not only having access to the Windows source (They sort of do now due to the leak, but they can't do anything with it), but being given legal permission by the government to use it, with Microsoft's help!

It's nothing to do with the money. Microsoft are crapping themselves because of the other conditions.

Within 120 days Microsoft is required "to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products." This is at least in theory a pretty absolute requirement; Microsoft has to publish whatever it takes in order for rival vendors' servers "to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers, and it must provide updates where necessary.

Microsoft currently licence this and it is this which they use to sell server OSes and apps using the ease of interoperability as a main reason. Server OSes and stuff such as MS Exchange earn them alot more than desktop OEM versions of XP. Ease of interoperability is what is getting companies to sign up to the ripoff Licencing 6 scheme. The requirement to open up the server interoperability means that Linux will go storming in big style.

As other posted already pointed out the appeal will not help. MS has to pay right now and comply to the rulings already set by this court. If it appeals and they win the appeal later then this will be reversed.

I think there is a lot more hope that EU will stick to it's guns than the US (and I say that as a US citizen). There is much less financial/economic risk to the EU to do this vs. the US, being that MS is a US company. So it will be easier for them to actually keep to their judgement.

What is often forgotten is that most competitors of MSFT are also US companies, so to limit MSFT's monopoly would harm one US company, but benefit a lot of others many of which are also US companies.

So, the economic balance does not explain the US failure to correct this economically damaging condition, there must have been another reason. Probably plain old bribes, or just stupidity from the part of the Bush government to see the economic benefit to have sound markets with sound competition.

I share the hope that the EU manages what the US Dept of Justice flunked.

However, as a citizen of the EU, I'd advise against getting your hopes too high. Our legal systems have considerable ability to delay and obstruct, for companies with enough money and determination.

The US DoJ looked set to implement a proper solution just a few years ago, but the election of President Bush put an end to that.

Changes of government in European states are not infrequent and can change the direction of the whole loose alliance that is the EU. Don't overlook the possibility that if the EU's governments move to the right, this case may be damaged.

In fairness though, Europe's courts are less subject to policital interference, so here's to hoping!

I hope that the EU actually sticks by its guns. That is one thing the US has not done.

The most incredible thing (and kind of funny in a shocking way) is that Microsoft is trying to use that very reason as some kind of excuse as to why it shouldn't be fined in Europe. The argument runs something along the lines of "... but we can do this in America! You can't fine us if we can do it in America!"

Hey, news flash for you Billy boy! In Europe, you comply with European law, and it's a lot harder to buy a few politicians to exert political pressure on the justice system.

I don't think I agree with this suit. Media Player isn't near a monopoly in media players. Almost everyone has Quicktime installed, Real comes preinstalled on Dells, DivX is out there. There are things Microsoft has done that I don't think were right, but bundling software with the OS isn't one of them. Anymore I expect some type of media player, a browser, and e-mail client, whatever to come with my OS, be it OS X, Windows, or Linux.

Things like the BeOS lockout are what I'd think should be the focus of antitrust type suits against MS, not value add to Windows.

No, no, no, you don't get it.
They are a monopoly on desktop OSs. There is no problem with that in itself. What they have been convicted of is of leveraging that monopoly to gain an unfair advantage in other markets. Namely, the media player market.

The problem comes in when a company like real or Netscape comes out with a product that is good and then Microsoft does two things.They come out with a similar product, bundle it in the OS and then force/threaten their OEM's not to install the competitors. That is what is wrong.

Let's take your list. What if IBM/HP/DELL/Gateway decided to bundle:OpenOfficeFileMakerWinzipRealPlayerMozilla (and change the default browser)GIMPSuns/IBM's JDK with Eclipes

Could they do this for almost no cost? Yep. Then Microsoft would suddenly raise the cost of EACH version of windows that IBM/HP or Dell buys (Like they did to IBM. Dell got Windows for ~$10 while IBM got it for ~$100.00, and they wouldn't sign any deal with IBM for MONTHS after the new OS was released, thus killing IBM desktop sales during that time)

So yes, I agree that I want a bunch of stuff bundled with my OS. (With the ability to not load it) But I hope that you would agree that most people want the best software bundled at the lowest price. We currenlty don't have that CHOICE. That is what is hurting consumers.

What "media player market?" Is there a version of Windows Media Player that costs money? All they're doing is giving stuff away. They bundled IE not to get us hooked and jack up the prices, but because an OS should come with a browser. IE is free (as in beer). MediaPlayer is free.

A better question is "Is there a streaming media server that costs money that media players require the use of", to which the answer is yes. Microsoft's goal with WMP is to provide a single media streaming platform that requires the use of Microsoft products on the server and which controls what can be used on the client end.

They most certainly did bundle IE to "get us hooked", as came out in the original Judge Jackson DoJ anti-trust trial. IE was tightly integrated with the operating system to prevent Netscape from being able to create platform independent middleware, and it was the platform independent middleware they were most concerned about. By making using Netscape a "jarring experience" (Microsoft's words) and by encouraging the development of Microsoft-only webpages through technologies like ActiveX, Microsoft most certainly hoped to hook people on Microsoft-required content.

I'm also baffled as to why you think that it's the job of an operating system vendor to supply a bunch of tools that have nothing to do with the functionality of an operating system. We can have a competitive market, or we can put up with OS vendors including tools that are "just about good enough" to ensure that 90% of people do not switch, and hence the market for better alternatives isn't supportable. How is that a good thing?

Compare Firefox to IE, any number of email clients many of whom predate Outlook Express to Outlook Express, commercial virus checkers back when DOS included a Microsoft Virus Checker, etc, and ask yourself why people should be lumbered with Microsoft's third rate crap because Microsoft has killed, through the act of bundling, better alternatives?

Now, if Dell or HP, or frickin' Gateway wants to bundle this non-operating system related software with a computer, that's one thing (and, yes, that means Apple has a perfect right to), at least them doing so ensures a competitive market. But Microsoft doing it means that Dell, HP, and Gateway, etc, have to include whatever Microsoft includes. And that's not right, that doesn't create a competitive market, and it's Microsoft muscling into a market to the detriment of customers and for the sole reason of wanting to control who runs what, who is able to create what, who is able to see what, and what tools, as a result, they have to run everywhere else.

Right now what little choice we have is thanks to the Open Source movement, essentially a socialist enterprise (socialism in its original meaning of "a group of people working together to improve things for everyone" rather than the bizarre American "A government wanting to interfere in everything" definition), we're not seeing capitalism in its supposed "competition will improve everything" mode. It's time we did.

So for the same business behavior, it is fair when you are small and it is unfair when you are big. I would say Microsoft is punished for being too successful, not for unfair practice.

If Windows was 30% of the market share, MS could add a media player and increase value, sure.

What they could *not* do is threaten to jack up prices on OEMs that include rival media players, because the OEMs would use one of the OSes that made up the other 70% of the market.

They didn't even get in trouble for just bundling. They got in trouble specifically for *illegally leveraging monopoly power.* This is something you cannot possibly do without a monopoly, so market share DOES matter.

There are things Microsoft has done that I don't think were right, but bundling software with the OS isn't one of them.

You're right, because bundling isn't the problem. Product _tying_ is the problem.

It is much different to say:

"We are giving you product X with the purchase of product Y, whether you want it or not"

than to say:

"We are giving you product X with the purchase of product Y, and not only can you not remove product Y from your machine (as it is an integral part of the operating system), but we have taken special precautions to make sure that only product Y has access to features of product X that make it particularly useful; and by the way, your system provider signed a contract stating that they would not install product Z on this machine, so you're on your own if you want to install it. And don't complain to us if it is mysteriously disabled every now and then."

Linux distributions don't even compare. Yes, Mozilla is bundled, but if I want to get rid of it and use something else, it's nothing more than a dpkg --purge.

Bundling is not illegal. Product tying is legal too, except that it is a common technique by which a monopoly position is frequently abused, so it is something that frequently comes up in these cases when you are trying a company for abusing a monopoly position.

It is not a matter of choice.
It is a matter that microsoft has a near monopoly. As such it comes other restriction. The main one(at least in the US and similar in the EU) is that you cannot use your monopoly in one area to get a monopoly in another.

You can easily buy a PC without Windows on it... and if you don't like Microsoft you can use one of the many alternatives. If you are a business owner and want to stream media content, you can choose from one of the many alternatives.

Nonsense. I may be able to buy some sort of PC without Windows on it, but suppose, like most businesses, I have standardised on one supplier (like Dell). I go to their website. I pick my PC. Where is the Linux Desktop option? As for alternative media content. Downloading alternative players and installing them takes time and effort. This may not be much for an individual but for a company with 10,000 seats its time and money.

Until I can go to most major PC suppliers and get the option of alternative OSes and features pre-installed and configured for hardware there is no true competition.

What happened to the notion of freedom, so rarely espoused or valued on Slashdot, of freedom from government intervention?

How about freedom from large megacorps shoving crap down our throats because they have a monopoly and are rich? How about freedom to use the internet without a monopolist breaking every known standard just to spoil it for everyone who doesn't feed them money? A government has to intervene when the laws of the country are being broken. Surely you support government intervention in the cas

My sister chose Microsoft because it came with her Dell 3 years ago. She also chose MS Office because it opens MS Office documents. She would use OpenOffice except it doesn't open MS Word files with 100% accuracy in conversion.

People don't choose MS because they like it but because they need to. The nuance is what makes it an unfair monopoly.

In a working market economy, profits will be minimal. If anyone is selling a product with a high margin, some competitor will take makretshare by selling the same product with a lower margin. Either way, profits will be small.

Since the players in the market are motivated by maximizing profits, they will always try to circumvent the market forces, mostly by obstructing their competitors. For a company that holds a monopoly in one area, one way to do this is to bundle products from other areas. This is b

This position, held by most Slashdotters who have commented on this issue, is highly contradictory.

Consistency is a property that is often overrated by geeks. In the real world, logical consistency often leads to such stupidity as monopoly, anarchism, facism, the religion of "free markets", and Libertarianism. There are two reasons for this:

First, logic is a process by which models are built, not a reality. As a modeling methodology, it is very sensitive to the axioms chosen from which to start the process and many "true believers" in logic are very non-selective in their axiom selection. In addition, the models produced by this method, like all models, distort some aspects of reality, and these models need to be probed for limitations and inacuracies and validated against the real situation. Again, those who most often prattle on about "consistency" are often least likely to test their models for the only consistency that really matters - consistency with the real world.

The second problem with consistency is that the real world simply isn't. The real world is an incredibly messy system. Can you predict with logical certainty that a particular lion will attack a wildebeast at a given time? That a human will make a certain stock trade? Human beings have evolved a highly complex, but inconsistent processing unit (called a brain) that copes pretty well with the world as a whole. Compared to this processor's proven longevity, the creation of logic has been a relatively recent innovation and one that is (as of yet) evolutionarily unproven. Given this, it is highly specious to assume that this new (and unnatural) processing mode is superior to the messier and fuzzier processing that has insured our (and other creatures') survival over millions of years. It is also most probably false that a pure use of logic is superior to a synthesis of the Aristotlian model and a more fuzzy one.

In short, cowboy, people ain't machines - stop tryin' to turn folks into them. I know it would make them a heck of lot easier to model of they were and you think that people would be a lot easier to understand if they were mechanistic and that your natural ability to understand mechanisms would give you an upper hand if they were and you'd be a lot more comfortable with that, but all that just means I'm really glad that you're not in charge. I refuse to surrender my humanity to your logic.

People choose Microsoft because it offers benefits that they consider worthwhile, and as Microsoft's success as a business shows, people are willing to pay for these benefits.

People paying money for products is only one half of a healthy market. Innovation by the capitalists is the other half.

Microsoft is not innovating because it doesn't have to. It has an extremely solid framework in place ranging from software interoperability trade secrets to software patents to vendor lock-in contracts, all to ensure that no one will be able to compete with them legally or that the cost of starting up will be so great that no one will bother.

Their entire business foundation is placed upon a government intervention known as copyright, which has also not served the market. If it were 14 years and if software copyrights required registration of the machine-readable source code with the copyright office, we would already be benefiting from the Windows code of NT 3.1 vintage to serve interoperability efforts, even when they are unwilling to provide interoperability details themselves. However, instead, they are allowed to retain a perpetual monopoly on their software legacy, and any interoperability must be attained through reverse engineering. That is not a good formula for competition.

Without competition, innovation is not happening at the rate that it would in a healthy competitive market. You can sit there and argue all day that Microsoft deserves to reap the riches of their monopoly position without government interference, but every day they sit on their haunches deciding whether it's worth bothering to improve their products, progress in the state of software engineering and the leading edge for users is being held back. I don't know what dogma you subscribe to, but economists seem to have a pretty good formula for improving society, and competition is a fundamental basis of it. Where competition does not naturally exist, it is government's job to try to stimulate it as part of a successful economic policy.

It is utterly ridiculous that we have to depend on open source loving hobbyists and small businesses for the little innovation that comes out of the software industry today. Microsoft may be a monopoly, but they are no market leader. They are a disgrace to the computing industry. I hope this decision changes them permanently for the better.

It isn't the government's place to tell a company what they can or cannot sell.

Riiiight...

But if you are the only provider of X (a legal monopoly) and you leverage that monopoly to drive out providers of Y and gain a second monopoly, then it becomes the government's place to tell you what you can and can't do.

I think you're interpreting the sentence wrong. I read it that Microsoft has to give relevant information to competing products that they can interoperate with Windows machines. What really differentiates a server from a desktop these days, except for how its setup.

Ultimately, if Microsoft has to allow other server products to interact with its desktops, then other desktops will also be able to interact with it's desktops and when Microsoft makes a server worth using, it'll be based on their desktops, so